The Indy Experience.com is proud to present an interview with the creators of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb.  Our interview consists of a compiled a list of detailed questions and answers about the Raiders remake including questions submitted by several Indiana Jones fans, two of whom have lucky enough to have seen the Adaptation.  Each question is answered individually by the Adaptation's creators to give you an in depth look at the creation of this historic fan film.

- Question #2 -

Since I have not seen the film, I have to ask – to make your Belloq character as accurate as possible, did you swallow a fly?

Chris: We were good.  Very, very good.  But not that good. :)

Eric: I wish!  (Despite the fact that I played Belloq...)  Believe me, if we’d had some means of doing so and have it not appear cheesy, we would have (this was in the 80’s, before the age of digital editing and special effects).

Jayson: We joked about it.  But for some reason we never seriously intended to do it.  I guess we didn’t because it wasn’t in the original Raiders script. 

What sucks, is now that I’m thinking about it, we could have done it!  It wouldn’t have been that hard to cultivate some flies for filming.  Then smear a little bit of honey (food for the fly) on Eric’s lip to keep the fly in place.  Or put the honey just inside of his lip, so it would crawl in.

Not a very sanitary effect, but I bet Eric would of done it.

Maybe.

It is, of course, a lot easer to come up with great ideas in hindsight.  What’s a challenge is coming up with the ideas while you're in the middle of the project and juggling a hundred different things at once.  But if any of you have access to a time machine, I’ll gladly go back and put the fly in.

 

- Question #3 -

Do you guys consider Raiders of the Lost Ark to be your favorite film of all time?

Chris: I’m a film lover through and through – but it’s hard to even put Raiders into a “favorites” category.  It is its own movie – standing alone for me.  It was a definitive variable in my childhood and in a way – transcends anything classifiable in cinema for me.  If it helps to answer the question, I can still watch Raiders and enjoy it.  But - it’s hard to separate it from what we did just cause the original was so pivotal in defining my childhood.  It serves as more an intense personal history than a “favorite movie.”  

Eric: When friends ask me what my favorite films are, I exclude Raiders from the list.  That’s because, speaking for myself personally, Raiders ceased being a movie for me at some point years and years ago.  It’s been too defining a thing in my life for too long for me to call it merely a movie or film... it’s set aside in its own unique category, although I’d be hard-pressed to define what the category is... life catalyst, maybe?  My personal zeitgeist?

Jayson: That depends on how you define “favorite film of all time”.

I actually have dozens of favorite films, which I love for different reasons.  In my heart, the 1987 movie, Something Special, always comes to me when someone asks that question.  But at the time Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, (I was in 5th grade) I would of said Jean Cocteau's 1946 French classic, Beauty and the Beast.  The photography and make-up was exquisite.  (I was a strange child.  In 4th grade my favorite book-on-tape was The Death of Socrates, by Plato).

But if you asked me what I thought was the greatest rollercoaster movie of all time, a movie that lifted me out my adolescent rut and gave direction to my life - then that movie would definitely be Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 

- Question #4 -

What did you learn from your experience in making the Raiders Remake?

Chris: As our tribute to Raiders has had a “second coming” so to speak, I continue to learn from it.  There is a great deal of reflection and perspective to be enjoyed from this now.  What I learned and am learning....

Confidence.  Courage.  That “no” is usually the word you’ll hear the first 20 times you ask for something when you’re making a movie before you hear “yes” – and then you get a submarine.  I learned that friendship is one of the strongest most important things one can ever have.  Given all of the ups and downs we’ve had – we are all closer now than ever before.  Problem solving, persistence.  Love of snakes.

Eric: To accomplish something like this, which required the work and contributions, large and small, of many... you have to learn to be patient.  We were working with a lot of kids, from school, from the neighborhood, and not all shared my passion for the details, for getting it right.  Learning to work with and through very different human beings, to accomplish a purpose, that is what remaking Raiders required me to change about myself.  It’s stuff that I still apply today.

Jayson: More like what I didn’t learn.  Ok, um, here’s the tip of the iceberg of what I learned by making our little movie:

1. Responsibility not to put the effects/movie over a person’s life or well being.
2. Don’t blindly follow directions in a book.  Always test out new ideas for safety.
3. Attention to details
4. Teamwork
5. Improvisation
6. Troubleshooting
7. Multi Tasking
8. Cinematography
9. 3/4” analog Editing
10. Came up with a lot of cool FX/make-up ideas I used in later projects
11. And much, much more

 

- Question #5 -

How much of the original set pieces and props did you save?

Chris: Remnants of the sets still exist in Eric’s moms basement.  The boulder.  Lots of old Raiders memorabilia and research.  The Ark. A few flags, My whip, jacket and shirt.  Storyboards, sketches, production notes, Lots of comic books.  Probably a bunch of other stuff I’m forgetting.

Eric: Hmm, let’s see... many of the fake snakes, spiders, and hand-sewn traditional Arab costumes were sold off or given away in a yard sale years ago, I think ... and our Medallion prop melted in the fire of the Bar Fight.  However, we’ve still got the 6’ high fiberglass boulder, in the backyard... the Arab Swordsman’s Scimitar, my mom still keeps our Ark of the Covenant, stored in the attic... and there are still the Egyptian wall paintings and hieroglyphics festooned on the walls of my Mom’s basement, where we shot the Well of the Souls and Map Room... Anyone that buys the house later on will have to wonder about the previous occupants...

Jayson: I’m not sure.  I know I still have the Arab robe that Chris wore.  After I inherited it, when the movie was finished, I made it into an arty robe by spattering black and blue ink over it.  Chris thinks it makes me look like a homeless person when I wear it.  But I think its beautiful by any other name.

I might still have the Arab’s teeth and knife.  A lot of stuff is buried away in boxes.  One of these days I’ll have to see what treasures I still have.

 

- Question #6 -

Any chance of doing a remake of Temple of Doom or Last Crusade?

Chris: LOL!!!  Ummm. No.  Eric and I have always wanted to do the Flying Wing scene.  That was one of the only scenes we left out.  It would be fun as hell to do “scenes” from either Temple or Last Crusade – but the whole things, mmmm. No.

Eric: Quite unlikely!  Although those films have their strengths, there’s nothing like the original Raiders, before or since.  The story, the characters, we found so captivating, I think Chris and I really wanted to inhabit that world, as much as one could... and this was the best means of doing that.  Remaking Raiders sounded like fun.  A helluva lotta work, but rough-and-tumble fun.  Even now, to me, it still does.

Jayson: Uh...

...no.

 

- Question #7 -

How has making this movie affected your love of Raiders, and are you able to watch it any longer? – Submitted by, Eric

Chris: I still love it.  I have the box set and still love it completely.

Eric: It probably helped that, back when we started, in the early 80’s, this was before movies were readily available in the video store... so for the first few years, we hadn’t seen it that many times, we operated by memory.  By the time Raiders came out on laserdisc mid-way through our making it, I’d already storyboarded all 602 shots, through cobbling together photos, storybooks, and memory.  When we did see it again, after years of recreating it, it was akin to a religious experience... we felt it.  Now... though every note of John Williams’ soundtrack and every word of Lawrence Kasdan’s dialogue is burned permanently into my memory cells...I still love Raiders, very much.  I am still able to watch the original, feel a very powerful attachment, and still manage to see something new each time.  How does it hold up so well? 

Jayson: When I went to California College of Arts & Crafts, they taught us that if the viewer is first immersed into a work of art through a  reproduction, instead of the original, then the reproduction becomes the original work of art.  At least in the sub-consciousness of the viewer's mind.

For me, I had only seen Raiders once before filming.  So when I watched it for the second time, a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but constantly compare it to ours, instead of vice-versa.  It was a strange experience to view it this way.  Because it's like spending years reenacting some historical event, then getting into a time machine and seeing the real thing in person.

Beyond that, I don’t know how to express in words, about my feelings towards Raiders.  Other than saying it’s a GREAT ROLLERCOSTER RIDE regardless of how the experience is gained.

 

- Question #8 -

Now that the DVD's are out... do you see any details that you missed in your interpretation? – Submitted by, Eric

Chris: Of course.  Lots of them. We were twelve.  But as a handful of people have mentioned to us, it’s what we didn’t do at times that made some of the other things we did do all the more powerful and charming.

Eric: Oh, sure, of course.  Even when we were making it, despite a great passion for getting the details right, I was all too aware of what was not right, what we left out, as concession to our limited resources.  Yet, the most rewarding experience is watching our film with hardcore Raiders fans, who pound me on the back, delighting that we got in an esoteric detail, from the same November 1936 issue of Life magazine on the Pan Am Clipper, to the detail that Mr. Spielberg observed in his letter, our Indy’s voice rising as he says “It’s a date... you eat ‘em.”  That people see and respond to that is very satisfying.

Jayson: When I recently watched the move again, I saw several details I would of loved to have done.  The opening shot with the waterfalls really got to me.  Because it’s a great shot and I knew several places in MS that looked just like it.

I also wished I did the fly in Belloq’s mouth and the plane fight scene.  Over the past year I’ve been thinking of different ways we could of gotten over blowing up the plane.  (making the bomb was the only FX I couldn’t do, mainly because it scared the hell out me when I made the test bomb).  I also regret not doing the plane scene because Eric recently joked that I would of been perfect for the German Soldier sense I was really buffed back then.  I would of shaved my head for part too.  But I would have had to stand on a bunch of milk crate boxes to compensate for height difference. (right now I’m 5’2”, back then I was around 4’7” or so).  Oh well.

 

- Question #9 -

Do you think there’s any chance of a DVD release of the remake?

Chris: For obvious reasons, this would be a legal minefield.  We are lucky to have gotten the endorsements we’ve received thus far.  A world wide theatrical release or release into the Home Entertainment market would involve armies of lawyers.  If anyone could do it though it would be Scott Rudin.  We’ll see.  If there would be a way to do this and use the profits to educate young aspiring filmmakers – that would be wonderful. 

Eric: That would be great.  Back when Harry Knowles wrote his seminal review, he worked in a lobbying for our film’s inclusion with the impending release of the Indiana Jones box set.  While that was not to be, we’ve even heard rumbling that some prominent industry figures were envisioning our film even having a nationwide theatrical release.  That’d be immensely exciting, of course, though for either that or a DVD release to occur, many a legal hurdle would need to be cleared.  Never can tell, though.  I certainly never thought any of this would happen, either.

Jayson: Yes, definitely.  The real question is when, not if.  The answer to that question is - not for awhile.  The first part is getting the powers that be to agree to distribute it.  We’re currently wanting to set it up so the proceeds from the movie will go to or establish a young filmmakers foundation, but there are a lot of legal hurdles to get over before that happens.

The other part of the delay is that I’m currently in the process of digitally re-mastering and re-editing it, because the version we have now is about 6 generations, which means there’s a lot of audio hiss and lost of image quality.

So I want to go back with the original, 1stgeneration footage and clean it up.  So when it gets distributed, it will be the movie we always intended to make, without the technical distractions.

I’m also in the process of making a documentary about us making our movie.  It’s called “When We Were Kids”.  It will be composed from our 23 hours of outtakes and recent interviews.  I know that might sound like an ordinary documentary, but believe me when I say the outtakes are even more outrageous than the edited movie.

 

- Question #10 -

Can you tell us about the costume you used for Indiana Jones throughout filming?

Chris: In the wake of coming into contact with some pretty hardcore folks from Indy Gear, The Raider.net, The Indy Experience and Club Obi Wan forum - I feel a great deal of pressure from this question.  I see the accuracy with which Indy fans obsess and argue about what Harrison wore in each film and the nuances of each item on his person.  Remember, the Internet didn’t exist when we were kids and we did a lot of this stuff from memory, magazines and the movie theater.   The jacket was a WWII bomber jacket, the hat was some Indy Fedora clone from some hat shop, but we also used a brown fedora from the Salvation Army I think.  I went through a two bullwhips.  I think I got them as gifts or birthday presents. The first I can’t remember. The second one, which I still have today, was bought at a feed store in central California.  The bag was a leather hippie purse from the 60s that I got from my mom.  I can’t remember where the shirt came from.  My pants were brown corduroy Levi’s (blasphemy in the fan world I know).   Whip latch was the snapping cuff of a brown vinyl jacket I cut up. Can’t remember which belts I used.  My shoes varied from year to year – from penny loafers to duck boots to marine boots.  We were creative and resourceful.  If we did it again, I’d obviously log onto Indy Gear with a phone and my Visa card in hand and make some other choices.  I think fans appreciate the emulation regardless.

Eric: Pretty primitive and not very good in the beginning but, like every other facet of what we did, it got better.  I remember in the first year spray-painting this Members-Only jacket that Chris had, in a misguided attempt to make it look like a brown leather jacket.  As soon as the spray-paint dried, it promptly peeled off.  We then graduated to a vinyl faux-leather jacket, purchased from the local Salvation Army, and we thought naively was so cool.  Eventually, by year three I think, we’d wised up, and got the means for a real brown leather jacket, along with the other Indy accoutrements of comparable authentic quality – fedora, shirt, holster, shoulder bag, boots.  For some reason, now that I think of it, we never really got the pants right.  Brown corduroys... <wince>. what were we thinking?

Jayson: I don’t know how we came up with Indy’s outfit.  But I do know that Eric made the dozens upon dozens Arab costumes by himself.  His mother showed him how to make them.  He sewed them all on an old sewing machine, that his mom said she had always had enormous amount of trouble doing small jobs on.

I still have one of the robes and can honestly say that Eric did an amazing job of them.  All the stitching is still intact and that’s with me wearing it around the house in the morning, all these years.

 

- Question #11 -

Can you tell us about your meeting with Mr. Spielberg and what brought about such an extraordinary occasion?

Chris: Following our film deal with Scott Rudin Productions, Mr. Rudin called Spielberg and was instrumental in this of course.  Spielberg’s office then contacted our agency and our agency contacted us as we were driving around LA.  We drove onto the lot, waited to see him and were greeted by him in a very relaxed, down to earth way.  He is very kind, very down to earth man.  He was relaxed, more than generous with his time and shared stories with us about Raiders, Harrison, Indy IV and making movies in general.  We watched gag reels from Raiders and Temple of Doom that I don’t think anyone will EVER see.   It was an incredible afternoon.  A childhood dream come true and I will be thankful for this experience until I die.

Eric: We were in Los Angeles doing a bit of publicity, coordinated by our agent David Boxerbaum.  As we’re driving around, David gives us a call on my cell, and tells us that we have a meeting with Steven Spielberg the next day.  Emotions quickly shift from my initially feeling disbelief...to sick with nervousness...to elated... to sick.  Apparently, Scott Rudin, the producer who purchased our life rights was gracious enough to arrange the meeting.  No agenda... just... meet The Man himself.  Unreal.

We arrived at Amblin the next day, and after waiting for a few minutes in a conference room, in walked Steven Spielberg.  He welcomed us, sat down next to us, and for the next forty minutes or so we just chatted, about what it was like to make Raiders, what was behind the story, other great movies.  He said that he wanted the fans to know that regarding Indy IV, they weren’t dragging their feet.  Discussions over scripts were delaying things, but while it’d be easy to put out an average film, their commitment was to make sure that the new film was done right.  He was very genuine, open, warm, real.  When I mentioned that it would have been great to see deleted scenes from Raiders, he asked, “I think we have the gag reel here somewhere.  Want to see it?”  We all exchanged looks.  This was too good to be true!

A few minutes later, we are sitting in Mr. Spielberg’s office, watching the gag reel that the crew put together with outtakes and funny moments from Raiders and Temple of Doom.  It was hilarious, and I had the feeling that we were seeing something that very [few] people outside the original crews of those films had ever seen.

At the end, Mr. Spielberg was even kind enough to grant our request for a photo.  As I said to Chris and Jayson upon our walking out of the Amblin offices, you know, it’s simply amazing to finally meet your boyhood hero.  And on top of that, really wonderful when you realize, long afterwards, that you’ve chosen your heroes well.

Jayson: The three of us were in the car in LA.  We had just come from an interview and I told Eric and Chris that at some point we were going to met Mr. Spielberg.  They shook their heads and told me to “dream on”, or something like that.

A little while later, Eric’s cell phone rung.  Chris answered it, it was our agent.  A minute into the conversation Chris said he was going to be sick.  But he held onto his cookies and continued the conversation on the phone.  When he was done, he told Eric and me that we had an appointment to see Mr. Spielberg the next day.

Eric’s mouth dropped.  I just smiled and said “Told ya so.”  For the next few minutes they called me Nostajayus (Nostadamus).  I joked a few more predictions off: like getting the key to the city in MS and how we will have brief cameos in Raider’s Pt. 4 flick (dream on).

The next day, I was a bit nervous.  Thirty minutes before the meeting, I was really nervous.  When we reached the waiting room to his office, I was really, really nervous and my bladder was full.  After I relieved myself, before our meeting, I felt completely relieved and comfortable.

Actually, I felt very present and euphoric as we were led up to his office. 

Mr. Spielberg is a very warm and paternal man.  At the end of the day, he’s just little kid at heart who plays with very big toys.  It was a deep honor to meet with him.  My face was quite sore the next day from my constant grinning I did during our meeting.  Actually it wasn’t a meeting, it was just the four of us hanging out and shooting the breeze for 40 minutes.  How cool is that!

 

- Question #12 -

Outside of Steven Spielberg's response, what's been the most interesting/unexpected response you have received? (Submitted by Bill Hertzing)

Chris: The thing that has been most incredible is how its inspired people – young and old.  In addition to the Indy fans of the world, it’s inspired people from all walks of life. We have gotten tons of responses from people that have been touched and inspired by our story.  That is the most interesting and satisfying thus far.  Well, meeting Spielberg and getting his blessing is pretty flippin’ amazing. That’s hard to beat. 

Eric: For me, it’d probably hearing from the girl that I had the biggest crunch on, back in my elementary school, at age eight.  Apparently, she heard about all the hoopla and tracked me down, twenty-five years later, to say hi.  That was a name that I hadn’t heard in forever.  While that doesn’t represent a romantic opportunity (we were eight, plus I’m very happily married and have a newborn baby boy!), it is absolutely amazing to hear from people that I lost track of so long ago, now emerging from my past.  It feels like I’m on a surreal episode of “This Is Your Life”.

Jayson: The 4 minute standing ovation we got at the Alamo Draft House after our showing.  My brain froze at that moment and it still is frozen with this barrage of attention we’ve been getting since then.

I’m convinced that this is all an elaborate, expensive prank on us.  I’m mean, this movie has been sitting in our closets for the last fifteen years, for gosh sakes.  We made it when we were kids and didn’t know what we were doing.   Now, suddenly out of nowhere, we’ve receiving all of this hype and praise.  Yep, we're on the show Punk’d, I just know it.

Sometimes it’s a lot easier to deal with the wonderments of life, when you live on the island of denial.  That’s how I’ve been getting through all of these national interviews and meetings with celebrities.  Yep, this is all a joke.  At any moment, Ashton Kutcher will pop out.  Maybe there is something worthwhile about our movie beyond the experience of making it.  Mm... maybe there is something worthwhile about our movie beyond the experience of making it.

 

- Question #13 -

Are you disappointed that they haven’t made another Indiana Jones film? (Submitted by Eric)

Chris: Well, the thing that’s disappointing is the delay in getting the script completed.  I’m confident that between Lucas and Spielberg, the fourth installment will be great.  It makes me a little melancholy to think that Harrison is getting old and the great era of the Indiana that children of the 80s grew up with will soon be over.  Who’s gonna take up the hat and the whip and keep going?  Ahhh, life.  

Eric: I didn’t really expect them to, after the third one, mainly because it seemed intended to draw the mythology to a close, riding off into the sunset and all.  And, that was the year (1989) that we finished our own remake and showed it at last in our hometown... so I guess that seemed like the year of emotional closure for me and Indiana Jones.  I thought that I was done.  Little did I know!  So I was surprised when I heard that a fourth installment was planned.  When it’s released, guess who’s in line.  You know, I think Chris, Jayson and I will probably have to all fly in to a central location and see it together, for old times’ sake.

Jayson: Mr. Spielberg asked us to relay a message to the Raiders fans.  He wanted us to inform all of you that they haven’t been dragging their heels in the making the 4^th Indiana Jones movie.  There is a script that they have right now.  But it isn’t as good as they would like it to be.  So instead of rushing out a junk film, they’re going to make something worthy of the Raiders name.

So no, I’m not disappointed that the 4th movie isn’t out yet, because I can’t wait to see another damn good film, as opposed to watching something that was slapped together because the fans pushed them to make the movie as quickly as possible. 

Please give Mr. Spielberg and company encouragement and support to make the best movie they can.

I always like to think of anticipation as one of the greatest things artists and magicians have to offer.  It's like the night before Christmas.  But if this film is unduly rushed, it will be like the movie Godzilla 2000.

 

- Question #14 -

How many different locations were used? And were they all in close proximity to each other? (Submitted by Holly)

Chris: Eric has a better memory with these sorts of things than myself. My estimation is maybe fifteen or sixteen separate locations – interior and exterior.  They were all somewhat close to one another.  The farthest we ventured off was to Lizana, MS for the excavation site and to Alabama for the submarine shoot.

Eric: Nearly all of the interiors were shot in the basement of my Mom’s house in Ocean Springs, Mississippi – the Cave scene, the Idol room, the Pit scene... the Bar Scene (nearly burned the house down!), the Map Room, the Well of the Souls, even.  We lived down there all summer, every summer, it seemed.  Exteriors included the Tchoutacabouffa River in nearby Biloxi for the River Scene... alleyways in the Gulfport business district for the Cairo Street Fight scene... Finding a location for the Sahara desert in Mississippi was tough.  We finally found this dirt farm (“we sell dirt”), where earth-moving machines has created pits and dunes out of this red clay, used in construction.  We had found our desert!  All was shot on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, in fairly close proximity (45 minutes drive max).  The sole exception was the Submarine scene.  For that scene, we drove a caravan of vehicles an hour and a half away to Mobile, Alabama, to Mobile Bay, where an old WWII submarine was retired and on display as a tourist attraction.  We got permission and shot carefully around the tourists... who didn’t quite know what to make of us.

Jayson: I went a little bit overboard in answering this one, but I was really curious to know the answer as well.  So I went through our entire movie and counted up all the scenes and locations.

It should be noted that many of the sets were made years before they were actually filmed.  So for 7 years, Eric’s ENTIRE house was a giant, walk-through museum to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Eric’s House (Ocean Springs, MS)

Basement:

1. Cave
2. Cave Temple
3. Pit
4. Nepalese Bar
5. Imam’s House
6. U-boat Cargo Hold
7. Well of the Souls
8. Arab Bar
9. Map Room
10. Angel of Death
11. Blue Screening for Melting Scene – we never used this footage due to technical reasons.  But I hope I might incorporate them when I digitally re-edit our movie.

Bedrooms & Living Rm:

1. Indy’s House/bedroom
2. U-boat Cabin (kissing scene)
3. Belloq’s Tent
4. Stop motion for the red line on the Map

Roof: 

1. Sallah’s Porch

Back Yard:

1. Melting Scene
2. Hovitos chase Indy out into the open meadow
3. Some of the entrance shots to the cave scene
4. Eric’s Near-Death by Hot Plaster Mask (back porch)

Chris’s House (Biloxi, MS):

Back Yard:

1. River Scene (beginning of movie)

Bedroom:

1. Filmed the ghosts for the Melting Scene.  I made them by videotaping white, silk rags, which I moved around in a fish tank.  Later that night at WLOX, we superimposed this footage over the footage of the actors.

Front Yard:

1. Truck Scene
2. Jungle Scene
3. Blew up Belloq/Eric’s head for the Melting scene, with a sawed-off shotgun
4. Truck Explosion (for Cairo St. Fight scene)

Bo Jo Fleming’s Dirt Farm (Lizana, MS):

1. Tanis Digs Scene
2. Canyon Scene

U.S.S. Alabama State Park:

1. U-boat
2. Submarine

Point Cadet Plaza (Biloxi, MS)

1. Nazi Supply Base

Ocean Springs Airport:

1. Indy gets into plane for Nepal

Down Town Gulfport, MS:

1. Cairo St Fight
2. Outside of Government’s office (tag/end shot)
3. Warehouse (end shot)

St. Johns Episcopal Church (Ocean Springs, MS):

1. Where Indy teaches College (elementary school, in our case)
2. Government’s Briefing Rm (tag/end scene)

Others locations of interests:

WLOX 13 (Biloxi, Ms):

1. We were given the rare privilege of using their editing room to edit our feature (graveyard hours only).
2. We were planed on using the elevator shaft for the pit scene.  But for some reason, we didn’t.

Jayson’s Garage & Back Yard (Biloxi, Ms)

1. Mad Scientist’s Laboratory for FX and test shots of explosives and fire gags.

No actual scenes were shot here.  But I took over my house for the movie, with equal intensity as Chris and Eric did to theirs.  I’m still baffled that all of our parents allowed us to dominate their houses as we did, for 7 long years!

I can’t speak for Eric or Chris’s parents, but mine loved it when I took over of the garage & back yard.  During parties or when guests were over, my mom would give tours of my “mad scientist workshop” in the garage.   She would often point to a pile of corpses that I had made.  Proudly, she would tell her friends and guests how I nearly scared my sister to death when Chris & I put them in her closet.  We were just curious to see if they were really scary or not.  Turned out they were.  “A perfect 10 on the Richter scale of screams.” My mom would say, “I knew when I heard her scream like that, that Jayson had really achieved something.  Oh, and this is a dummy that gets the sword through the chest.  And this is...”

 

- Question #15 -

How did you accomplish the stunt of going under the truck and being dragged behind? (Submitted by Paul)

Chris: We just did it in all of its dangerous glory.  I didn’t go completely under on the front shots, but pretty far.  As I’m sure every Indy fan knows, Terry Leonard and his crew dug a trench so he could go completely under the truck.  We didn’t bother.  I held on to the front of the truck and went under the front of it as far as I could.  Then, to give the impression that I went completely under it, I held myself under the back of the truck until we reached maximum speed.  I then just dropped, rolled, stayed low and flipped around while hanging onto to a rope that looked like a bullwhip.  I dragged behind it and pulled myself up the back.

Eric: CGI.  No, seriously, we just did it.  (Chris, I think you’re best to tell this one...)

Jayson: Chris should answer this one, since he figured it out, did the stunt and all.

In terms of camera work, Eric devised a wooden crate for me to sit in.  It was very scary looking and it attached to the outside of the Truck’s doors.  So I could videotape the action inside the moving vehicle.  There was no engine inside the truck (the truck was pushed and/or pulled by another vehicle to make it move 20 mph).  I videotaped from under the truck’s hood, where the engine used to be.  I also climbed a few tall trees to get the bird’s eye view shots.

Eric & Chris also had me perform several stunts for this scene:  I doubled for a couple of soldiers who were flipped and tossed off the moving vehicle, as well as an Arab who’s ladder gets knocked out from him.  So at the end of this stunt, I’m dangling from the tree.  It should be noted that this stunt was designed for the truck to be the actual device that knocked the ladder out from underneath me.  Eric’s safety direction to me was to hold onto the tree really tight, so I wouldn’t be dragged away when the truck came by.

 

- Question #16 -

How did you get the soundtrack music timed in so well with the action; to me it seemed to match quite well? (Submitted by Holly)

Chris: Editing and re-editing – over and over.  Eric was a stickler for this.  We just kept cutting and re-cutting until it was smooth.

Eric: Thank you very much for noticing!  Lots of trial-and-error, basically.  I had actually forgotten this, but after going through the outtakes, Jayson reminded me of this:  When we were shooting the Map Room scene, for example, I was apparently off-screen, timing Chris's key movements in each shot with a stopwatch, so it would later sync up with the ebb and swell of the John Williams soundtrack.  After we filmed the last shot, we spent the rest of the summer editing, and succeeded in achieving “picture-lock”.  However, the sound (music, sound effects, some re-dubbing) was a lot of work, and Chris and I got together for one more summer, the last summer to painstakingly add the necessary polish.

Jayson: Eric’s amazing and precise storyboards are the main credit.  But in terms of syncing up exact moments, like the alarming part of the soundtrack when the ghosts came out the ark, or when the trap to the Idol is sprung - on precise syncs like those, I (and later on Eric) would find the exact point in the audio that dramatic sound happened, and the part in our video that it is supposed to be in.  Then I would rewind the tapes and sync them up by matching up their time codes numbers from the point of the sound sync.  Time code is like a compass and map in the world of editing.

 

- Question #17 -

Were there any safety concerns during the making of the film, such as problems from parents? (Submitted by Bill Hertzing)

Chris: Sure.  But after we lit Eric on fire and almost got shut down for this stunt, we kept all of our footage pretty secretive.  It got to the point where we didn’t show or tell our parents too much.  For all they knew – we were just off shooting Raiders and “being careful.”  Eric, Jayson and I did most of the really dangerous stuff.  We didn’t want any of the neighborhood kids getting hurt – we’d rather we got hurt instead of them.  Less liability. :)

Eric: Our parents were very supportive in the sense that they encouraged us to be independent, and didn’t at all get in our way.  However, there was one incident in which we were nearly shut down by our parents.  I think it was when Chris’s mom spotted some of our footage, when I had my back set on fire while filming the Bar Scene, and told my mom.  And for some reason, they had a problem with this...

Jayson: Through out the bar scene I bickered with Eric to water down the alcohol, for safety reasons.  If you use 70% or higher it will get hot enough to burn fabric.  But under 70%, on natural fibers, it produces a large flame, at low temp.  But the lower percent of alcohol, the shorter the burning time.  Luckily we had no immediate dangers from using the pure alcohol on the set.  But it turned out the curtains that were used on the windows, were made from a synthetic fabric.  So they went up in an inferno and it burnt the wiring to the house.  The charred wires weren’t discovered until 10 years later, which meant that the house could have gone up in an electrical fire any time in that 10 year period.

Ironically, the only truly life threatening moment was when I made a plaster mold of Eric’s face.  I had made facial molds successfully before.  But I had recently come across an old make-up book that suggested using soap on the eyebrows and hair, to act as a separator from the plaster.

Bad idea.

That day I had learned that just because something is in a book, doesn’t mean that it's true.  Nor is someone an expert just because they say they are.

Long story short - did you ever see the movie The Man In the Iron Mask?  It’s about a criminal who was permanently entombed in a iron mask.

Change the iron mask to HOT, 3 inch thick plaster, and you have Eric’s story.  He tells it best.

 

- Question #18 -

Where did you film the Raven Bar scene?   How was it you were allowed to set the place on fire? (Submitted by Bill Hertzing)

Chris: Under Eric’s house in his basement.  Yeah, we pushed the envelope with this and almost burned the house down.  “Allowed” is a pretty strong word.  I don’t think we were ever truly “allowed” to do anything – we just forced our way into doing it.  After Eric almost burned to death, it was suggested that we have “adult supervision” for the fire scenes.  Our adult supervisor ended up being less responsible and much more of a pyro than we were. Thank-god.

Eric: We filmed the Raven Bar scene, as we did nearly all of the interiors, in the basement of my mom’s house.  As to just how we got away with it... well, I guess our moms didn’t know Raiders as well as we did, otherwise, they’d know when we said “Okay, mom, we’re going off to shoot the Bar scene” to have a response other than “Okay, dear, you have fun...”  As mentioned above though, our cover was blown when our footage of me stunt-doubling for the Ratty Nepalese, screaming with back aflame, was spotted.  After that, the Moms shut us down for the rest of the summer, and it looked like the project was doomed.  The following summer, however, I put on a fire stunt-safety demonstration for my mom, demonstrating the innocuousness of burning isopropyl alcohol (doesn’t destroy the surface on which it burns).  We also secured an adult chaperone, and the Moms then allowed us to continue filming the Bar scene, under adult supervision.  Unbeknownst to them, however, our adult chaperone was actually slightly less mature than we ourselves.  Peter Kieffer, wherever you may be, thank you, my friend... Peter looked on while drinking a can of Bud while we doused the basement good with buckets of isopropyl alcohol and set it aflame.  Yes, young dumb kids we were, and looking back on it, we were very, very lucky that we never did have an accident where person or property was harmed.

Jayson: When I first joined up with the Raiders project (aka “Our Little Movie”), Eric gave me a list of effects I needed to come up with.  Igniting Eric and his basement on fire, without burning everything down, was one of my assignments (if only grade school teachers would give assignments out like that).

So I went to the Keesler Air Force Library (my dad was a colonel at the base, Chief of Surgery).  Back then I was really small. (Right now I’m 5’2”, while back then I was about 4’5”).  So even though I was 13 years old, I looked about 9 or so.  I guess it was because of that innocent young look of mine that the military uniformed librarian believed me when I told her I was working on a science fair project.

She was extremely helpful in finding me books on how different chemicals can burn at different temperatures, but the information was way over my head; chemistry books and the like.

I was about to fall into despair, when I found the holy book:  “Science and Magic Tricks” (or something like that).  There was a trick in it that showed how to light a scarf on fire without damaging the cloth.  “Hey,” I thought to myself, “if it’s good enough for a silk cloth, it’s good enough for Eric’s back and his house."

I went home and spent the next week experimenting with lighting myself on fire, in the bathroom.  When my mom would bang on the bathroom door, and ask me what I was doing in the bathroom.  I called out a Robin Williams’s joke I recently heard:  “I’m going blind, mom!  I’m going blind!"

She never asked me what I was doing, locked away in the bathroom, after that.

The first fire gag we did was Eric’s back.  I was focusing on camera, so I had shown Eric how to use the isopropyl alcohol safely.  But for some reason, (to this day we still don’t know why) Eric decided to substitute gasoline for rubbing alcohol.  It nearly burned him, but with a blanket and 2 fire extinguishers we manage to put him out.  Luckily, only the back of his hair was singed.

At the time, we used to love to watch the outtakes at Chris’ house with our parents.  For some reason, Elaine (Chris’s mom) had a problem when she saw Eric’s back on fire.  So between Eric and Chris’s moms, we were shut down.  My mom on the other hand, begged them to let us continue on filming.  It took a year and a half of negotiating before we were able to start filming again.  The following summer, Eric gave a "pyrotechnics" demonstration in front of the moms, and convinced them that we “had” and could do fire gags safely.

The other part of convincing them to let us restart production was to have adult supervision on the set.

Peter Kieffer was everyone’s choice.  After all, he lived in a cottage on Eric’s property, he was enthusiastic about our project and he had worked on professional movies before (he had a brief gut-eating-zombie cameo in the original Dawn of the Dead).  So everyone thought he was perfect and he was.  Perfect for us, that is.

When it came to the wide shot of the bar on fire, he was present with a wide grin and beer in hand.  Eric and Chris had 5 gallon (no joke) containers filled with isopropyl alcohol.  They conservatively splashed some of it around and lit the set on fire.  But Peter called out, “More, you need a lot more fire over there.”  So they splashed a couple of pints of alcohol over a table.  “No, you need a lot more than that!   More!  More!  More!  Yea, that’s it.  Now a lot more over there, on that wall!  More, more, a little more. Yea, let’s film it!"

Photo from the original Dawn of the Dead movie.

To Peter Kieffer, if you're out there - We love you with all our hearts, souls, limbs and brains. Wish you the best, wherever you are. Call us, we would love to hear from you!

 

- Question #19 -

Did popularity of the project grow as time moved on? (Submitted by Bill Hertzing)

Chris: Yes.  It seemed as time moved on the people that considered us nerds or doubted us ended up wanting or begging to be in our Raiders movie.  That was a nice feeling.  Geek power prevails!!!

Eric: Most of the kids in my high school probably thought I was crazy.  While many were out doing keg parties on Friday nights, I was down in my basement, taping up my hieroglyphic stencil to the wall, my hands coated in sticky spray-paint.  But I did manage to convince enough that it’d be fun to be in a movie, that we got enough kids to play extras – Arabs, German soldiers, pirates, students, bar patrons, etc.  So yes, it did build momentum.  Thank goodness we saved tackling the big crowd scenes for last.

Jayson: After we had our ’89 premiere, our movie became an urban legend.  I’ve read some postings of people who talked about growing up, where their parents told them the bedtime stories of remaking Raiders as they were tucked into their beds.

 

- Question #20 -

Were there moments that the group thought about abandoning the project? (Submitted by Holly)

Chris: Of course. We often wanted to give up but kept one another in check – an inter-accountability. Also we had come way too far to give up.  We all wanted to finish it and watch the finished movie.  It was hard, but we kept going.

Eric: There were plenty of times in which we were discouraged, where it just seemed too big, and there were some naysayers who kept chanting, you’ll never finish, you’ll never finish... At times, it was tough.  The roughest were what few falling-outs we had.  Chris and I had a dispute over a girl, and it threatened to kill the collaboration that had lasted five years by that point.  But we got past it.  And then near the end, in year six, there was something of an editing room mutiny over what degree of work we were going to give the sound, and we went our separate ways for a year, the fellowship seeming to fail even as we were nearly over the finish line at last.  But we came together again, and got past all that, which is why for me our story is primarily a story of how friendship can endure, and has, for twenty-two years now and running.

Jayson: I never wanted to abandon the project.  I just wanted to make it original.  It was a blast remaking the jungle and bar scenes.  But when it came to the college scenes, with its never-ending dialogue, mutiny simmered in the background.  But Eric quickly put me in my place.

It wasn’t a dramatic revolt, though.  I just asked Eric if we could quit remaking Raiders and edit our footage into something original.

He said no.

That was the end of the mutiny.

Then there was the editing room.  This was the only time mutiny was successfully accomplished.

When it came time to edit our feature length movie (over 23 hours of raw footage), we had a really, really small window of time that we could edit in (about 1 month).  And we could only use WLOX’s editing machine during the graveyard shift.  So for a month we were either sleeping or editing, 7 days a week.  At the end of the month Chris and I were completely burned out on our project.

The last time we spoke to Eric was on a dirt road.  He told us the movie wasn’t finished.  He said we still had lot of audio work to do.  We disagreed and drove away, literally leaving Eric behind in a cloud of dust.

The following year, Eric spent the summer putting in sound effects and touching up on the score.  At the end of the summer Chris called me up to tell me to fly down for our 1989 premier.  It was a truly magical reunion.

But I might add, its not that I didn’t want to finish editing the movie.  I was just burnt and needed a break.  Now that I’ve had 15 years to relax, I’m now ready to digitally re-master & re-edit the entire movie.  Please note; no added FX will be used.   The only point to digitally re-mastering our movie is so we can present it the way we always intended to.  Instead of a grainy, audio buzzing, 6 generation degraded version.

When we originally edited our feature, we only had analog editing machines to use, which is where the machine copies the information from one tape to another, in order to make the edits.  Each time this happens, the image and audio quality go way down.

I have all the 1st generation tapes.  So I’m going to re-edit our movie, by matching up the digitized 1st gen. with the original edits I did.

 

- Question #21 -

Do you all keep in touch on a regular basis today? (Submitted by Holly)

Chris: Now we do.  We lost touch for a variety of reasons for about three years.  But now, with the second coming of our little backyard tribute, we speak or email almost every day.  It’s awesome.

Eric: Yes, with as much going on for us right now, between the Rudin-Paramount movie deal, media requests for interviews, and requests for screenings at film festivals, we talk at least weekly and trade emails semi-daily.  We see each other in person in different states every few months on stuff Raiders-related, and at the end, give each other a hug and say “Well, I’m sure I’ll probably see you in another few months”.  And we do.

Jayson: We do now.

Prior to all of this, the last time I saw Eric and Chris was back in 1994/’95.  Chris just called me out of the blue and asked me down for Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately, the way my work schedule was, I had to fly back just when dinner was being served.  And I was the one who cooked most of it.

 

- Question #22 -

How long did it take to make the boulder and what materials were used? (Submitted by Holly)

Chris: I think Eric answered this one well.  It was a saga in and of itself. Three or four different versions were attempted.  All resulted in various comedic and pathetic outcomes.

Eric: The boulder was our most challenging prop, and went through several incarnations before we had a boulder that we were happy with.  The final version was constructed out of fiberglass materials – fiber strips and resin.  Basically, we dug a 3’ deep hole in a backyard, and using a plumb line, measured and dug it out very carefully with a hand tool to be a (near) perfect hemi-sphere.  We then coated the sides with fiberglass, it hardened, and we popped it out.  We then repeated the process, joined the two halves together and – voila! – we at last had our boulder.

Jayson: The final, fiberglass version took about a week.  But if you include the failed rejects:  years.

 

- Question #23 -

How many times did you see the movie prior to making it (The dialogue is quite spot-on)? (Submitted by, Holly)

Chris: For the first few years, we did it all from memory.  I eventually bought the script and we just kept seeing it in the theater over and over.  I don’t recall a specific number, but a LOT.

Eric: Thanks!  Well, we started production only having seen the original Raiders a few times, it not being out on rental for a few years to come.  To learn the movie, we bought everything Raiders we could get our hands on – the published screenplay, the novelization, the comic book, the movie on record, the soundtrack, action figures, magazine articles (this was also before the age of the Internet).  Hell, we even got the “Suitable for ages 3 and up” Indiana Jones storybook with 45” record, for the sound effects and photos that came with it (“When you hear the sound of the bullwhip... >thwak!< ...turn the page.”)  I also had snuck in a tape recorder under my shirt when Raiders was re-released to theaters in 1983.  So I had the movie recorded, and would listen to it in the way that most listen to language-learning tapes in their car, and speak along with them.  So I had much practice on my faux French accent as Belloq.

Jayson: I just saw it for the second time a few weeks ago.  Good movie.

 

- Question #24 -

Due rapid vertical growth spurts and various stunts, how many costumes did "Indy" and "Marion" go through during the six years? (Submitted by Holly)

Chris: Strangely enough, not many. Angela stayed the same size for the most part.  I would lose weight and gain weight – so I think I changed shirt and pant sizes on a few occasions.

Eric: Uh...not as many as we should have! (Chris, I think you’re best to tell this one...)

Jayson: Surprisingly, not many.  Low budget and all that.

 

- Question #25 -

Who's dog did you use to play the monkey? (Submitted by Holly)

Chris: Mine.  As one could imagine, monkeys were a little hard to come by in Mississippi.  I had a dog named Snickers that was so trainable and so easy going, we just used him instead of a monkey.  I could throw him over my shoulder, move him around, he would fetch, go and come when we told him and was very flexible little puppy.  Whenever people watch our tribute, Snickers is always a smash hit and steals every scene he’s in.  He was a very cool dog. Snick unfortunately met his maker shortly after we finished shooting and was hit by a car in front of my house. His canine magic is captured on the big screen forever.

Eric: The dog was played by Chris’s dog, Snickers.  Some may notice the dedication to Snickers, at the very end of the credits.  He was a good sport, Snickers, being carried around on Chris’s shoulder, take after take. (“Nice dog... when did you get him stuffed?”)

Jayson: Chris’s dog – Snickers, aka “Porker-Man”

 

- Question #26 -

Were there any injuries while doing any of the stunts? (Submitted by Holly)

Chris: Sure, here and there.  Despite the fact that I played Indiana, I never ever got hurt.  Eric was always the one getting hurt – burns, broken arm, plastered face, hospital visits.   So, yes, there were a few here and there, but no one died thank goodness.

Eric: Not unless you count my singed hair from stunt-doubling for the Ratty Nepalese on fire in the Raven Bar scene... or my face that got stuck in plaster when trying to make a mold for the Belloq-blowing-up shot at the end... Hey wait a minute... Chris is Indiana Jones, I’m the director... why is it that I was the only one getting hurt?  Seriously though, we were very fortunate:  No real injuries of note, unless you count near-heat exhaustion for Chris during the Truck scene.

Jayson: Eric was the only person who was constantly hurt, and he was the director!  Who would of thunk directing was such a dangerous job?

Actually, I did get a sliver of glass in my foot during the bar scene.  I was an idiot and wore thongs that day.  There was about 2 feet of glass on the floor that I had to wade the camera through.  It was a small cut, though.  I had actually forgotten about it, until I recently saw the outtakes.

 

- Question #27 -

How did your peers (in school) at the time view your determination throughout the process or was this project kept pretty much under wraps? (Submitted by Holly)

Chris: Some thought it was cool – others thought we were wasting our time.  Adults thought it was “cute.”  Most people doubted us and/or began to sarcastically ask us about it as time went by – “So, are you guys finished with that Raiders movie you’re working on (in jest).” And we would explain accordingly.  We didn’t really keep it under wraps, we told most people about it if they wanted to know about it.  We were ashamed, just determined.  When people doubted us or rolled their eyes, it just made us want to finish it more.   The fact that it had gone on so long became a running joke with many folks, but it wasn’t anything inappropriate.  I think there were many people who didn’t really take us very seriously, but it was all in good fun.

Eric: (Same as Question #19)

Most of the kids in my high school probably thought I was crazy.  While many were out doing keg parties on Friday nights, I was down in my basement, taping up my hieroglyphic stencil to the wall, my hands coated in sticky spray-paint.  But I did manage to convince enough that it’d be fun to be in a movie, that we got enough kids to play extras – Arabs, German soldiers, pirates, students, bar patrons, etc.  So yes, it did build momentum.  Thank goodness we saved tackling the big crowd scenes for last.

Jayson: They thought it was cool.  But they listened to my stories as if I were talking about summer camp, which it kind of was, minus the adults.

At art college I was a bit scorned for spending 7 years remaking Raiders, because it wasn’t an original work.  So when I got the letter from Mr. Spielberg last year, I suddenly thought to myself, “Hey, maybe there’s something to our movie besides the experience that I had gained in making it.”

Considering the response we’ve been getting since then, I guess there is something more to it. 

Who da thunk?

 

- Question #28 -

How did you go about raising the funds to tackle the expenses involved? (Submitted by Holly)

Chris: No fund raising at all.  Allowances, donations of clothing or junk that we could make into stuff were typical.  We got a lot of things for free cause we kept asking and asking and asking.  Birthdays, X-mas presents.  Jayson delivered pizza’s, Eric worked, I worked. We would ask for materials for holidays, birthdays or Christmas.  We were incredibly resourceful.  A LOT of guerilla film making involved.

Eric: For me, weekly allowance from parents, from vacuuming the house and cleaning the bathrooms... $5/week as I recall.  We would coordinate gift-giving occasions carefully, as they were prime opportunities to acquire dearly-needed props and costumes (“Okay Chris, for your birthday, you ask for the bullwhip... Me, at Christmas, I’ll ask for the fedora...” etc., etc.)  To this day, we have no idea what our film really cost, we just managed.

Jayson: By any means: